Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, according to Stephen Chenault, CEO of Troll Lord Games.Gygax designed the original D&D game with Dave Arneson in 1974, and went on to create the Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventure RPGs, as well as a number of board games. He also wrote several fantasy novels.
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/report-gary-gyg.htmlAwww… I used to like playing roll-playing games in high-school and college. I was a cleric (all in the name of God), a magic user, a Paladin, and an orc. By the way, what’s an orc?
“By the way, what’s an orc?”
O_blivious
R_anting
C_hristian
Also known as a troll.
Someone call the cleric, Gary failed his last saving roll.
Isn’t D&D satanic? like Harry Potter? I’d keep your kids away from the occult if I was you. Praise Jesus!
I was always told that I couldn’t play D&D because the game was of the devil because the game had 666 levels in it. I’ll say though, the game did seem kind of neat because it had all that midievel imagery of nights and sorcerers in it, and I believe there was some form of strategy involved or something that I never had the priviledge of learning.
I read the http://www.answers.com explanation of D&D… first RPG game and based on war strategies, huh!? Cool. Also, I’m not irrationally afraid of pentagons or 666 anymore either. Now that’s curing my delusions one at a time, yeah!
Actually, I wasn’t allowed to play the original Mortal Kombat either because it was “satanic” because it had demon imagery and Raydon had white eyes, plus it was violent.
D&D was a lot of fun when I was younger. I wouldn’t so much call it “strategy” though, at least not the way risk or chess is.
the real treat was the opportunity to immerse yourself in another persona and live vicariously through that persona, in a world where it was possible to fight goblins or gnolls and do fantastic stuff. for people who really get into it and play ongoing campaigns a lot can be invested in that persona, you acheive things and suffer losses as you advance your storyline.
the storytelling, thats the real meat.
of course, this was a later version, the first rpg’s didn’t have as much storytelling invested in them.
i normally do not leave comments,although i should, but this thread is important to me…been playing D&D off and on since 1982…4th edition is being rel. in june 08! eventaully, i will get my two freethinking children into it!
praise gygax!!:)
Me too. Been playing D&D on and off since 1982. It’s a great game that a lot of people misunderstand. It involves role playing, which means that you need to use intelligence, creativity, and strategy. You can also learn a lot about medieval weaponry. For full disclosure, my brother is also an artist who has worked on some of the 3rd and 4th edition books, so I have been around dragons and armor my whole life. If you don’t care if you are a dork, D&D is for you. I highly recommend it.
Wasn’t there a Tom Hanks movie about a guy who played D&D and went insane, actually believing he was the character? I don’t remember much about the movie, but I remember liking it.
So he did, I just checked IMDB, it was a tv movie called “Mazes and Monsters” which came out in 1982.
Holy crap. I remember that movie. I was talking about it recently with someone.
The college students in the movie all play D&D in a real cave. Does somebody die in it? Can’t remember. Good, creepy ending, too.
But what’s interesting is the movie’s prophetic warning on the addiction of D&D. And now today, you’ve got peeps dying from playing Warcraft non-stop.
Mom!!! Hot pockets!
Mom!!! Bathroom!
Angel_Of_Light, I have that South Park episode on my ipod
I also used to play D&D in college. Good times
I heard the reason why it is considered “Satanic” is because the character you roleplay worship different gods.
******NERD ALERT******
“By the way, what’s an orc?”
In Proto-indo european lanuages orc means young pig. In old norse it means seal.
In the ‘tolkien’ universe, it is claimed to be a derivative of both the latin ‘orcus’ (a type of demon) and a variant on ‘orc-neas’ from beowulf meaning sea-beast (as in seal).
Generally orcs that you find in, say, D&D, Shadowrun, the tolkien stories and World of Warcraft among others, are drawn with conspicuous lower tusks and sometimes pig noses. Go figure.
Wiki:
In Letter #210, Tolkien describes the Orcs as “degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types”. Since the publication of Tolkien’s epic novel, The Lord of the Rings, creatures called “orcs” have become a fixture of fantasy fiction and role-playing games. In these derivative sources, orcs and goblins are usually considered distinct races of goblinoids. For some time they were often depicted with pig-like faces, although there is no such description in Tolkien’s work. A possible explanation of this is the coincidence with Irish orc (cognate of English pork) that means ‘swine’. An alternative theory is that they were often depicted as pig-like due to the tusked and pig-like description of the orco (ogre) in Canto 17 of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. (The orco is, of course, described as pig-like because it gave Ariosto a chance to rhyme orco with porco “pig”.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc#Etymology_of_the_word_.22orc.22
What?! No resurrection spell? Get out your d20′s!
Seriously, I enjoyed D&D as a pleasant part of my teenage/young adult years. I still enjoy the PC games they have put out.